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@Demo318 Its donation based. I fund it as a charitable donation from my company as a means to support the scientific community.
@commandelicious I agree diversity is far healthier for any community. @Demo318
@freemo @commandelicious @Demo318 It starts early, here in Scotland at least. Interest is about even between m/f early in primary school and gets more and more uneven as kids get older. Even those women who study STEM in uni don't often go into STEM jobs. Initial evenness means we can only assume it's societal influence rather than natural, which means we *can* change it.
@commandelicious @freemo @Demo318 yep, there were four of us across two classes in Nautical Science.
@Katobell I'm not convinced it is 100% societal, but I am not convinced it isnt either. I can see evidence in both directions.
With that said I would encourage anything that aims to reduce the societal influences at play there.
@commandelicious @freemo @Katobell @Demo318 About women in science and engineering? I wasn't exactly encouraged but I grew up in the 70's and 80's and it was a lot more sexist back then. We had a typing class in my school that I actively had to avoid 😖
I read about Leonardo Da Vinci when I was a kid and decided I wanted to be a renaissance man and learn about everything like he did. That is probably why I am the way I am. There was a lot of arguments in order for me to learn a few things along the way and I ended up growing pretty thick skin and working in a few all male teams so I could learn things too 🤔
I think things are a lot different nowadays. I hope they are in any case. I think they have changed how they teach things in England a LOT though. I was looking at the qualifications so I could tutor someone and I barely recognised them.
@Nyoei I think we have been improving things for women in tech over time. At least I really hope we have. I'd be curious to see the percentage of women in tech over time. I'll have to google it.
Thanks for your valuable perspective.
@freemo @commandelicious @Katobell @Demo318 One thing I can tell you, male peers have never looked down on me for being a woman. It's only ever been managers or clients. The people you work with every day know how much you put in and your sex doesn't matter one bit.
I was considering going into business for myself after I finish my degree and I was genuinely wondering about hiring a man to be the 'face' for my company simply so I don't have to deal with clients who won't take a woman seriously.
It's ridiculous, but I know they exist, I have met too many of them and I don't have the time or inclination to deal with that. I'd rather just get someone else to deal with the muppets 😖
On the plus side:
I now know what cloth sizes means and what colour goes with what.
Humans are versatile.
You can learn nearly everything given enough time. Doesn't matter what gender you are as long as you have interest in learning something. My educated guess is that interest in STEM is just killed off in women by society.
@freemo @commandelicious @Demo318 there's an organisation called Equate Scotland specifically for this, if you're interested in data and seeing some current attempts at helping the situation!
@Katobell Awesome, I will certainly check it out for ideas. Thanks for your valuable input!
@commandelicious @freemo @Demo318 agreed. I even find myself excusing my knowledge - 'how do you know so much about that?' 'Oh, I grew up with two brothers'. Less effort than staring someone down!
@Katobell That sounds like a very self-defeating explanation for your intelligence (as im sure you realize). What do you feel, exactly, in society has personally pushed you to respond/think that way rather than to praise your ow achievements? @commandelicious @Demo318
@freemo honestly? Partly incessant questioning from men on whether my fandom/knowledge is as rigorous as theirs (so tedious) and partly that I'm not much of a talker anyway, I'd rather find out about other people. @commandelicious @Demo318
@Katobell
Hmm, that is unfortunate. I hope i never did that, I dont think I did. But I'll try to be more aware of it if i ever see someone do that so I can speak up. #TheLittleThings
@commandelicious @Demo318
@freemo @commandelicious @Demo318 self awareness is key :)
@commandelicious
yea people cant shut me up usually.
@freemo Now I am seriously wondering if your ancestors are from Germany and if you are like a very distant cousin :D
@commandelicious I have a little bit of German ancestry on my dad's side.:)
@freemo @commandelicious I love hanging out with talkative people, this has been a really fun conversation :) @Demo318
@commandelicious While we have some wonderful female contributors they are sadly a minority. It is no surprise that a STEM instance would reflect the democgraphic in the world. With that said I would be the first to welcome a change where more Women go into STEM and have an interest in the topic. But sadly it just doesnt seem to be as appealing to women as it is for men and that makes me sad :( @Demo318